Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar can only restore public confidence that he is not complicit to the many custodial deaths by either coming clean and give a full accounting of A. Kugan and 230 other custodial deaths from 2000 until May 2013 or else honourably resign as Inspector-General Of Police(IGP)

Yesterday in a historic judgment, the Kuala Lumpur High Court ruled in a civil suit that Tan Sri Khalid was responsible for the death of detainee A. Kugan who was physically tortured during interrogation by police four years ago, High Court judge Datuk V. T. Singham said the IGP Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar, in allowing the negligence suit, said the injuries Kugan suffered could not have been done by one officer and that the senior officers cannot plead ignorance.

Khalid was also reprimanded for trying to cover-up and suppress the truth to escape liability for Kugan’s death in January 2009. Can Malaysia afford to have a IGP to uphold the law when he has been ruled by the High Court as suppressing the truth, trying to cover up, negligent and responsible for a custodial death?

Singham awarded Kugan’s mother, N. Indra, RM 851,700 in assault and battery, false imprisonment, misfeasance, and pain and suffering damages. Despite such court rulings the Home Minister Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi continues to deny in Parliament that police brutality was the main cause of deaths in custody.

Zahid said that 166 deaths were due to illnesses, such as HIV, asthma, heart attack and others; 29 committed suicide, 2 died in fights among inmates while 2 slipped and injured themselves in the lock-up before succumbing to the injuries. Of those who had died in custody were Malays (97), followed Indians (51), Chinese (49), foreigners (25) and other races (9).

Following A. Kugan’s historic court victory, Zahid’s claims that police brutality was not involved sound completely hollow and ridiculous. Zahid should take heed of the KL High Court’s recommendation for the establishment of the Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC) as the BN government’s choice of Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC) is just not effective in preventing abuses of power and custodial deaths.

The EAIC can only make recommendations to the disciplinary authority of the relevant enforcement agency upon completion of investigations. The IPCMC would be able to prosecute and punish police personnel who abused their powers. Or else how many more must die before the IPCMC can be set up?

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